Video teleconferencing (also known simply as video conferencing) is well known in the art as a means for allowing remote parties to participate in a discussion. Voice, video, and optionally other data are transmitted between the parties over a communication network, such as the Internet, LANs, and/or telephone lines. The parties are able to see, speak to and hear the other parties simultaneously over audio and video channels.
Early video conferencing systems used dedicated hardware systems and ISDN lines for communication among the conference parties. More recently, however, low-cost software-based solutions have become available for video conferencing over Internet Protocol (IP) packet networks. Systems of this sort include Microsoft® NetMeeting and Windows® Live Messenger, Yahoo! ® Messenger, and Skype™.